The Apprentice Sidious
by Gantories
Summary: This story details the hidden history of how Palpatine became a Sith Apprentice. Journey from Naboo to Korriban and witness the apprenticeship that will doom a galaxy to the reign of the dark side.
1. Default Chapter

A/N. This is my attempt at showing how Sidious became a Sith Lord. It was posted before on another website, and I decided to post it on you enjoy, I will update as soon as I can each time.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

It is a time of deceptive peace for the Republic. The star spanning government appears outwardly strong, but it is rotting from within.

The respected Senator Palpatine is, in truth, the sinister Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. Lurking unsuspected among his peers, he plots the downfall of the Republic and its defenders, the Jedi Knights.

Palpatine's true origins have been carefully hidden from everyone. But now the Sith Lord is about to reencounter the one person who knows where it all began - his own father...

Prologue: 20 years before the Battle of Naboo...

Senator Palpatine was home, and the people of Naboo were glad to have him back, if only for a brief visit. They listened to his every word with respect and admiration; their adulation was impossible for the Senator to miss. He paused in his speech to bestow a warm smile upon the crowd.

Good looks were not the source of the senior politician's undeniable charisma. The Senator's face was dominated by a large nose that jutted over a small mouth and a deeply cleft chin. He had watery blue eyes below a receding hairline, and a thick mass of reddish curls behind his head. It was the kindly, mild face of a middle aged man, homely and unremarkable.

Perhaps his strong effect on the crowd arose from his connection to them. He seemed like one of them, their equal, a companion who worked tirelessly on their behalf. It was a message that Palpatine encouraged with his words. "The Republic needs more of you to follow in my footsteps," he told the crowd. "The galaxy needs the values of the Naboo people to counter the rising tide of corruption and disregard for the common good."

The audience proudly murmured their agreement. Their voices washed across the cavernous audience hall in the Royal Palace of Theed. Palpatine's gaze swept over the mass of people and came to rest upon the quiet, silver-haired Queen Breha seated at his side on the platform. A nearby floating hovercam adjusted its view to encompass both the Senator and the Queen, broadcasting images of the popular figures across Theed and far away to the great city of Keren.

The Senator seemed to address his next remarks to the Queen herself. "The Republic would benefit from the Naboo traits of rationalism and nonviolence. All too often, the worlds of the Republic clamor for war. The galaxy will continue to increase in needless suffering, without the guidance of those who value peace, art, and philosophy above destructive power. Our own history shows that we were able to overcome our own warlike nature. We must lead others to do the same. I have had some small success as a voice of reason in the Senate..." The crowd applauded warmly in support, and Palpatine smiled appreciatively but humbly. "...but the more voices that are joined to my own, the louder our message will be. If I can make my voice heard, despite my humble beginnings, how much more can some of you accomplish?"

On Naboo, it was well known that as a child, Palpatine had been an impoverished orphan. It only added to his popularity that he had taught himself what he needed to know in order to take up public service in politics at age sixteen. For four years, he had served the elder Naboo Senator at home. Then he left Naboo to go to Coruscant with the Senator, who took the young man into his inner circle and groomed him as a replacement.

"I ask the nobly born among you, those of wealth and privilege, the leaders of your communities, to consider what I have said here today," Palpatine concluded. There was more applause, and many receptive, thoughtful faces looked back at the Senator. Of course, if the audience knew that the good Senator was actually Darth Sidious, the only living Dark Lord of the Sith and a true Master of the dark side of the Force, they would certainly be justified in questioning his motives for making that speech.

Lord Sidious knew he wanted to use, and even sacrifice his people at some point, for the sake of his personal rise to ever greater power. Among the many possibilities of the future, he could foresee the pain and suffering of the Naboo along the pathway of his ascent. But his plans for them were not immediate. For now, it would help him in general if the Naboo were to shed their isolationism and expose themselves to the outside galaxy. At the very least, some of them would be influenced or corrupted in a way he could later exploit. Additionally, a significant, though little spoken of, Naboo value might spread to the rest of the galaxy in exchange, namely the Naboo penchant for pro-human racism. Palpatine smiled pleasantly at these thoughts.

That was when he looked down and made direct eye contact with a man in the front row. The spectator looked back at Palpatine with intense interest. The Senator took in the man's long, thin face, and tall, lanky shape. He didn't seem to fit among the well dressed audience. His modest clothing contrasted with the elegant attire of his neighbors, and with Palpatine's own expensive blue and green cloaked and vested finery. It was as if he had snuck in where he did not belong.

For a suspended moment, the Senator and the stranger gazed at one another. Then Palpatine took a step backwards, his mouth falling open. In the space between one second and the next, the man was no longer a stranger. A lock clicked open in Palpatine's mind, and a door of memory opened. He found himself looking down from the high platform at his aging father.

The usually calm and collected Senator was shaken. He realized he had not spoken for half a minute. People were beginning to notice. He broke eye contact with his father, who did nothing but continue to stare openly, an expression of wonder dawning on his face.

Palpatine glanced hastily around the crowd. Pulling himself together for a moment, he managed to speak to the hovercam. "Thank you all very much for coming here today. I look forward to speaking with many of you individually before I return to Coruscant. But for now, I regret I must leave your company." He quickly bowed to Queen Breha, who looked at him with a strange expression. Palpatine spun on his boot heels and strode away from the platform. His thoughts reeling, he hurried into the columned hallways of the Palace, not even seeing those who stepped aside to make way for him. The eyes of his father seemed to float in front of him all the way to his private rooms.

Palpatine shoved the heavy door to slam shut behind him. He began to pace across the red carpet next to the scarlet bedspread. Finally, he sat down on the bed to try to regain his composure. It was no use. His father. He had seen his father. Chaotic memories rushed to his mind, undesired but unstoppable. He was drawn steadily into a past he had tried to forget, a time of weakness he had rejected and buried. He stared blindly at the red d?cor he favored, and all at once, the memories crystallized, focusing on the image of an old red cap, a cap his mother had made and given to him, a cap which he had last seen a lifetime and another world ago...

Part One: Naboo

50 years before the Battle of Naboo...

Ten year old Espaa Pestage, the boy who would one day name himself Ethril Palpatine, sat in his favorite place at the edge of the cliff, and dangled his red cap above the long drop visible between his legs. The cap, his favorite item of clothing in his favorite color, was a gift from his mother, and a comfort to him. The dangerous, beckoning fall in front of him was not a comfort, but he liked to sit there nonetheless. He often wondered what it would feel like to fly downwards, before and after he hit the rocks below. Sitting there gave his life an element of danger, a small thrill he could control. That was sometimes necessary in the rather dull Naboo wilderness where he lived.

The warm colors of sunset drenched the cliff face with its rough ledges and natural stone stairways, creating a multitude of interesting shadows that Espaa loved to watch. Behind the boy, a wide gravel road wound its way up to his house. It was a lonely, mountainous region, with no other homes or people living there.

Espaa didn't mind the isolation. By nature, he was a loner, a moody child who his mother gently accused of being too sensitive. He favored the solitary arts of reading and painting. When, rarely, other children came to their home, Espaa tended to shun them until their families concluded their business with his mother and left.

Espaa was a small child, thin and pale, with a serious face, and wavy brownish-blond hair. His yellow eye color was quite rare among humans. He wore loose clothing with bloused sleeves and pants, and knee-high boots, all colored in shades of brown and gray. The red cap was the only bright thing he wore.

At the moment, Espaa was thinking about the dream he had had last night. In it, a Jedi, robed and menacing, had come to take him away. When he had told Gemsaa, his mother, about the nightmare in the morning, she had hugged him, and told him that dreams cannot tell the future. Yes, the Force sometimes allowed a trained Jedi to glimpse what might come to pass, but Espaa was neither trained nor a Jedi. His mother had promised again to keep him safe from the Jedi, and apologized for letting her concerns give him nightmares. She had told him not to worry.

Espaa couldn't help but worry. He knew he was Force-sensitive, and he knew that part of the reason his family lived so far away from the city was so that the Jedi wouldn't discover him. Any Jedi might sense his potential if they came close enough. His mother and father didn't want him to be taken to the Jedi Temple against their will. They thought it was horrible, the way the Jedi broke up families and removed helpless children from their homes in order to train them in the Force. Usually, those children never saw their parents again. From the day his mother told Espaa about this, he had been afraid it would happen to him.

Espaa's mother had a low opinion of the Jedi in general, even though she was a Jedi healer herself. Gemsaa saw the Jedi Order, and especially the Jedi Council, as isolated and arrogant. She claimed they had forgotten how to help the people who needed them. In obeying their strict code, they refused to step in when they should help, and interfered when they should not. Gemsaa shared these views with her son frequently, and that combined with Espaa's fears to give him a strong dislike for the Jedi without his ever having seen one.

Hiding Espaa was not the only way in which Gemsaa defied her Order. Ignoring a rule that she found especially offensive, Gemsaa was happily married to Espaa's father, Sate Pestage. Espaa had never understood why Jedi were so strongly discouraged from falling in love and marrying. Like so many of their rules, it made no sense. It was obvious to Espaa that his parents loved each other very much, and that they both loved him. That was what a family was all about. Were the Jedi anti-family? If so, how could they call themselves good?

Espaa couldn't stand the thought of being taken from his family, especially from his mother. In a way, he felt as if he owned his mother. She was his. As long as he had her, he really didn't need anyone else. Through the Force, Espaa and his mother could sometimes sense each other's feelings. That enhanced their bond in a way that was impossible for Espaa and his non-Force-sensitive father.

Although he never said it out loud, his father was less important than his mother was to him. He was more distant from his father, who was as introverted as Espaa. This similarity pushed them apart instead of drawing them together. While Espaa read history, Sate, a scholar of government studies, would do his research. Both of them spent days without really talking to each other in a meaningful way. It was up to Gemsaa, who was so different from both of them, to draw her family together from time to time. They needed some togetherness, living as they did so far from others.

The other reason the Pestage family lived in the wilderness, far away from Theed, was that Gemsaa's healing skills with the Force were so well known. Her curative powers were so great that her fame spread far and wide in a short time. Her reputation reached to other planets. When they lived in Theed, so many sick people in need of her talents came to her, that she was overwhelmed. To cut down on the sheer number of supplicants and attain some peace and privacy, she insisted years ago that her family move to the mountains. Now, despite the distance, people still came to her for healing, traveling by landspeeder or atmospheric craft. But there were fewer of them, and Gemsaa felt she could handle that.

Sometimes Espaa worried that his mother might be too much like the Jedi she disliked. Like the Jedi, she isolated herself. Weren't there people she didn't help, who didn't know where she was, or who couldn't make the trip out to see her? But then Espaa told himself that she was nothing like the awful Jedi. She did help everyone who came to her, without question, while the Jedi refused those in need because of their code. Obviously, his mother understood the code better than the Jedi back on Coruscant did.

Espaa never wanted to see Coruscant or the Jedi. But he couldn't get the nightmare out of his head. The Jedi in his dream had been powerful, dark, and irresistible. There had been nothing Espaa could do to escape being taken away. His mother might say it was just a dream, born out of anxiety, but it felt real.

Then, as if in answer to his thoughts, the setting sun's light glinted redly off of a distant approaching starship, flying low through the atmosphere towards his home. Espaa stood up and put on his cap, staring intently at the growing shape. A wave of cold fear washed through him. It was a ship, coming for him. It was his dream, coming true. It was the Jedi, coming to take him away at last. Espaa swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and watched the ship until there was no doubt of its direction. Then, he turned and ran as fast as he could up the rocky slope to find his mother. 


	2. Chapter 2

Senator Palpatine did not want to remember what had happened next, but he understood why those particular events were coming back to him. He had just found his father for the first time since he had lost his family. Finding ever goes hand in hand with losing...

In the Pestage family home, a single story, many-roomed complex that perched atop the highest point of the small mountain, Espaa's parents were sharing a tender moment in the kitchen, embracing each other closely. The evening meal was over, and there was time for simple relaxation. Sate Pestage towered above his smaller wife. In the Naboo fashion, he wore a brown leather vest, with bloused sleeves and pant legs above high boots. His pointed chin rested on Gemsaa's long light brown hair. Gemsaa was smiling and reaching up to run her fingers through her husband's thick black hair. Sate's hands were gentle upon her multi-layered gown of simple fabric and flower patterned embroidery.

All at once, Gemsaa sensed her son's fear. She turned to face him as he burst frantically into the room. As soon as Gemsaa and Sate saw the look on their son's face, they separated, and knelt by him. "Espaa, what is it?" asked Gemsaa.

"A ship, coming here! Like in my dream! It's the Jedi, coming to take me away from you!" Espaa squirmed when Gemsaa tried to hold him. He was too scared to stand still.

Gemsaa and Sate listened, and they could hear the sound of a ship's engines, growing steadily louder. "There is a ship," said Sate. "I wonder who it could be? Someone needing to be healed, I imagine."

"Listen to your father, Espaa," said Gemsaa. "I know you're worried about the Jedi. But it isn't them. I'm sorry I got you so upset. Try to calm down, all right?" She looked directly into her son's yellow eyes, and he settled down a little. She regretted sharing so many of her fears with her young son. Now they had gotten to him and troubled him deeply. Granted, there was always a very small chance that Espaa might be discovered by the Jedi as having a high Force potential, but rationally, she thought that living in the mountains would prevent that from ever happening. Furthermore, the older he got, the less likely it was that the Jedi would want him even if he was discovered. The Council frowned on training older children. And so, Gemsaa felt guilty for troubling Espaa when there was probably nothing to worry about.

Still...there was something about the look in Espaa's eyes that troubled Gemsaa in turn. He still looked afraid, and there was a certainty in his expression that seemed so adult, it gave her pause. In response to that, Gemsaa reached out with the Force to the approaching ship. What she sensed surprised her. Standing up suddenly, she startled both Espaa and Sate. She looked in the direction of the ship, even though the kitchen's wall stopped her vision. There was a Jedi on the ship, but only one, and she didn't think he was going to be interested in her son at all. The Jedi was dying.

Just in case, she told Espaa to stay inside the house, stay out of sight, and watch from the window. It was a plan they had developed long ago, when Espaa was much younger, and a Jedi visitor was a greater threat. Espaa had an escape route through the back of the house, and out into the mountain pathways if necessary. At the moment, however, Espaa wasn't thinking of flight. He was older now, and part of him wanted to stay and fight with his parents if necessary. The Jedi were not going to take him easily, he vowed.

Sate and Gemsaa went out to meet the ship. It was a long, narrow Republic Cruiser with three large engines and a huge sensor dish at the rear, and it was coming in for a clumsy landing. Dropping too fast towards the wide, sloping road, the ship was using braking jets instead of gentle repulsors. It settled heavily with a reverberating crash in a cloud of dust and flying gravel.

The dust cloud billowed past Sate and Gemsaa, sending them into coughing fits while the cruiser's engines shut down in the distance. When they could see the ship again, they waited patiently for the boarding ramp amidships to lower. But other than the random noises of the ship settling, there were no sounds. Aside from the dust drifting, there was no movement. The ship's exterior lights blinked in the dusk. Sate and Gemsaa stood expectantly. Espaa watched nervously from the window, peeking over the sill. Gemsaa glanced back at him, still sensing his fear.

When Gemsaa's comlink beeped, she jumped. Staring at the ship with apprehension, she removed the device from her belt and held it up. The voice which emerged was weak but gruff. "This is Master Usby Thape calling Gemsaa Pestage. I demand to speak to her at once."

Gemsaa scowled in surprise. Master Thape, of all people! He was the second most powerful Jedi Master on the Council, and the one Gemsaa disliked the most. She looked at her husband, and Sate frowned back at her. He knew how stubborn, self-righteous, and self-important Thape was, from the times Gemsaa had complained about her years at the Temple. The man embodied everything Gemsaa thought was wrong with the Jedi. Reluctantly, she spoke tersely into the comlink. "This is Gemsaa. What do you want?" At the same time, she half turned back to the house, her hand ready to give the signal to Espaa to flee.

The officious sounding reply brought her up short, and she lowered her hand slowly. "Don't bother to hide that child of yours. I'm not here about him. The council has known about him for a long time. We're just not interested." Thape gave a ragged cough. "Why would we want to train the offspring of a rebel we expelled years ago, a child who is far too old to be molded into a proper Jedi anyway? I'm here about one thing, and one thing only - my own survival. I'm dying, you see, and I demand that you heal me."

Gemsaa, offended, answered with equal rudeness. "Why should I help you? I know what you think of me-"

"Good," Thape interrupted. "Let's not waste time pretending to respect each other. You're not a Jedi anymore, but you can still serve the Jedi. You're a healer. I need help, and you're the only one who can give it to me." He coughed again, sounding pained. "As much as I dislike having to ask you, I have no choice. I'll be dead before I reach another healer, and the Jedi can't afford to lose me. So, will you do it?"

Gemsaa was speechless for a moment. Sate put a supportive hand on her shoulders. She drew strength from his touch, collecting her thoughts. "I need a moment, Master Thape," she said into the comlink with as much dignity as she could muster. "I'm turning this off so I can speak privately with my husband." Gemsaa emphasized the last word.

But when she turned off the comlink, giving Thape no chance to protest, Gemsaa fell silent, deep in thought. Sate let her think, standing by patiently at her side. The only sound was the beeping of the comlink as Thape tried to call her back without success.

Gemsaa concentrated on the problem at hand, fighting back her dislike of the Jedi Master. Her feelings about him were irrelevant. He was a person in need of healing who had come to her for help. She was a healer. It was what she did, and who she was. She couldn't turn down his request. Besides, now she knew that Espaa was in no danger of being taken away, and once the Jedi Master was healed and on his way back to Coruscant, her family could go back to their lives with one major worry removed.

"I think I have to help him," Gemsaa said to her husband, "whether he deserves it or not." Sate nodded his understanding, giving her a squeeze of approval. She had never turned a patient away before, and this time would be no different. At least Sate's admiration of her would be intact, and even increased by her choice to be generous to an old bastard like Usby Thape. When Sate looked at her, he saw a good and beautiful woman who was full of light. She loved him for that, and many other things as well.

Gemsaa motioned Espaa to come and stand with them. Hesitantly, disbelieving, he emerged from hiding and stood in the doorway. At her insistent gesture, he walked up to stand behind her.

Turning on the comlink again, Gemsaa called on her reserves of patience. "Master Thape," she said, "what seems to be the problem?"

"I'm dying, that's the problem," Thape said sarcastically. "Would you like to trade places with me? No? Then perhaps you can use your Jedi skills to save my life."

"I meant, what's wrong with you?" Gemsaa asked, gritting her teeth.

"Come on board, and then maybe you can tell me," Thape said weakly. "I'll respect your judgment, even though you don't follow the Jedi code. You have a good reputation for being able to heal exotic diseases. I have to trust in that, especially if I want to live. And I do, let me tell you that...I do. After seeing the way the others died..."

"Is your disease exotic? What was the infectious agent? Tell me what you know, before I come on board." Gemsaa wanted to know as much as possible before she risked the dangers of an alien virus or bacterium.

"It isn't any kind of microorganism," Thape replied. "Our biosafety scanners and containment systems are top of the line. This is a diplomatic ship, which has to land on all sorts of planets, with all the diseases you could imagine. The truth is, I have no idea what it is that's killing me."

"Where did it come from, then?" Gemsaa demanded.

"We picked it up on our way to Ophichi for the peace conference. We had to come out of hyperspace to plot another jump, and as we passed an uncharted world, we sensed an enormous disturbance in the Force emanating from it. Our mistake was to land and investigate. None of us was a scientist, but once we took a look around, we could see that something awful was starting to happen to that place. It was like the entire ecosystem was sick, and beginning to die. Trees, birds, animals, insects. Bacteria too for all we knew. Fear of illness, plus the terrible feeling in the Force, made us get out of there quickly. The ship's scanners said we hadn't picked up any infections, so we continued on our way. But this was something new, something the scanners weren't programmed for, I think." Thape fell silent, but Gemsaa could still hear his hoarse breathing. He needed to rest before saying more.

"A day later, before we could reach our destination, Master Solannan got sick. Then Master Arc-shan. Finally, I did too. At first, we wanted to keep going, but when Master Solannan died, Arc-shan and I decided to find a Force healer before it was too late. You were the most famous, and the closest. This is no ordinary sickness. It has something to do with the Force. Before they died, the other Masters lost their connection to the Force. I can feel mine weakening now. I don't have much time."

Gemsaa considered the information. There certainly was the danger of the unknown on that ship. But she trusted her abilities; she was a healer, and a patient needed help. The decision was made.

"Very well, Master Thape," Gemsaa said into the comlink. "I'm coming aboard as soon as I get my instruments." She kept a variety of advanced medical tools in the house, knowing that sometimes, the Force was not enough to get the job done.

When Gemsaa turned to walk back up to the house, however, she found Espaa blocking her way. "Don't go on that ship, Mother," he insisted. "Not if you could get sick and die too. He's just a Jedi, right? He's not worth it, is he?"

Suddenly annoyed, Gemsaa frowned at her son and went around him. But Espaa followed her closely all the way to her bedroom, pestering her all the while. Sate Pestage trailed behind at a distance. With her medical backpack in hand, Gemsaa turned on her clingy son. "That's enough, Espaa. I've made up my mind. Just...stop bothering me about it. This is my job. It doesn't matter that he's a Jedi. He needs my help. I hope you can understand that. Would you like it if someone refused to help me, just because I used to be part of the Jedi order too?"

"I don't care who he is!" Espaa admitted. "I just don't want you to go on the ship."

"Why not?" Gemsaa confronted him seriously.

Espaa faltered. "I don't know. I just...it's like a bad feeling or something. Like I'm going to lose you."

His mother softened. "Espaa. I love you, and I'm glad you worry about me." She looked at the concerned face of her husband, who was standing in the bedroom doorway. "You too. But please, both of you. Just let me work. The sooner I get started, the sooner we can get rid of that...that old monster."

Espaa still protested, but she silenced him for the time being with a warm hug. She gave the same to her husband. Gemsaa passed the comlink to Sate. "Keep in touch with me on this. I really don't know what I'm going to find in there. I may need something I don't have with me." She gave him a long kiss. "Wish me luck."

"May the Force be with you," Sate said, surprising her. He rarely said anything about the Force, or her Jedi past. She nodded gratefully, and went past him out the door. As Gemsaa walked down the rocky road to the Republic Cruiser, she heard Espaa come running out of the house after her. She turned and sternly pointed back towards the house, stopping him in his tracks. He stood still while she drew close to the ship and waited for the boarding ramp to lower. Gemsaa took one last look at her son's fearful face, and walked up into the ship where Usby Thape had quarantined himself. The ramp raised itself behind her, sealing the healer in.

Gemsaa took a lift to the upper level, and walked down a short deserted corridor to the cockpit. There were three chairs there, and Usby Thape was slumped in one of them. Gemsaa had seen sickness many times, but she was still shocked at his condition. Her memory of the robust Jedi Master could not be reconciled with this wasted, corpse-like figure. Once an overweight man, he was now shrunken and deflated.

Thape coughed and summoned his energy to talk "About time you got here," he said gruffly. "Now get to work. I haven't got all day." He choked out a grim little laugh.

"Where is the crew?" Gemsaa demanded. "And where are the other two bodies?"

"There was no crew. The Ophichi Council refused to let any Republic people on their planet, except the Jedi. So we came alone. Arc-shan was the pilot, I was the co-pilot. I had to space my friends when they died..."

Gemsaa nodded, and took out her diagnostic scanner. Kneeling next to Thape, she ran it across his body several times, then waited for a read-out. When she saw the results, Gemsaa gasped. "Full body necrosis," she said out loud. Thape had widespread cellular death in every part of his body. Diagnosis unknown, the scanner reported. Gemsaa agreed. Nothing she had ever heard of could do this to a person. Gemsaa used the scanner again to check for any kind of infection. She shook her head and frowned when it found nothing. No foreign bacteria or viruses.

Remembering what Thape had said about losing his connection to the Force, she decided to examine the Force-sensitive node in his brain. She closed her eyes and reached out with the Eyes of the Force, peering into Thape's dying body. Navigating though his brain tissue, she found the node where normally, a heavy concentration of midi-chlorians marked a Jedi as sensitive to the Force. Usby Thape's node was nearly destroyed. That part of his brain seethed with corruption and decay. The midi-chlorians themselves, usually so easy for Gemsaa to see with the Force, were completely gone. No, Gemsaa realized with horror, not gone, but changed into something else. Changed into a deadly disease.

Gemsaa opened her eyes and looked into Thape's wasted face. "You are dying," she confirmed. "You're losing the Force because your midi-chlorians are altered. They are what's killing you."

"Midi-chlorians?" Thape scoffed. "Not that old theory. Pseudo-scientific nonsense if you ask me. Does nothing to explain the central mystery of the Force."

Midi-chlorians were symbiotic microorganisms that lived within the cells of all creatures. It was believed by many Jedi that the organisms somehow acted as intermediaries between a Jedi and the Force, helping to communicate with the Force or to access the energy of the Force. They were discovered a few centuries ago, when Jedi scientists correlated midi-chlorian numbers with sensitivity to the Force. The numbers depended on the genetic make-up of the host's cells - if the specific host biology could support a lot of midi-chlorians, a lot lived in that host. This helped to explain why some Jedi were more sensitive to the Force than others. Midi-chlorians could live in many cell types. They could concentrate in brain cells, creating what the Jedi knew as a Force-sensitive node. They could also concentrate in the blood, and great loss of blood could temporarily weaken a Jedi's connection to the Force.

What was happening to Thape was much worse then losing blood midi-chlorian levels. "It doesn't matter what you believe about them," Gemsaa said. "They're real, and they're killing you."

"Killing me how?" Thape asked.

Gemsaa shook her head. "I don't know. Somehow your midi-chlorians have been changed into pathogens. Like disease-causing bacteria, they're deadly to you now. This is affecting your whole body because midi-chlorians live in almost all of your cells. This is very bad, Master Thape. There may be nothing I can do. But I will try."

Thape looked back at her with watery eyes. "Do your best," he told her. "I don't want to die." Then he fell silent, to conserve his resources.

For the next two hours, Gemsaa used all of her power in the Force to try to heal the Jedi Master. She sent invisible energy into his body to give him strength, and looked deep into his ravaged organs. Everywhere, there was destruction. It seemed to her that none of his systems could be saved. Thape was going to die from many causes all at once.

Gemsaa wondered how he was still coherent enough to talk to her, and to show any of his old personality. She marveled at his will power, and felt his stubborn strength in the Force. He clung to life and refused to die. Within him, the few blood midi-chlorians that were left were changing one by one. It was as if some sort of chemical signal passed from the altered symbionts to the healthy ones, telling them to change as well. It was like an unstoppable chain reaction.

Gemsaa tried to sense what had been done to the midi-chlorians, so she could try to change them back. But her attempts were to no avail. The altered symbionts were too alien for her to understand. The wave of death swept through the Jedi Master, and Gemsaa was unable to stand against it.

Lost in her efforts, Gemsaa only gradually became aware of a growing weakness in her own connection to the Force. She found that she could see less clearly into Thape's body. Her sense of his life energy began to dim. At first, she thought that Thape was dying at that moment, but she opened her eyes and saw that he was stable, thanks to her support.

Turning her Force senses inwards, Gemsaa made a dismaying discovery. Whatever the signal was that had spread throughout Thape's body, it had now crossed through the air over to her body. She had the disease too.

Gemsaa backed fearfully away from Thape, but there was nowhere to go to escape her fate. With the knowledge of a Force healer, she was compelled to accept the truth of what had happened to her. She also had to confront the truth of what could happen to others. Evidently, this disease could spread easily from one Jedi to another, because of their high midi-chlorian levels. Such a thing could eventually wipe out the Jedi. All of the Jedi. Midi-chlorians, once an excellent predictor of Force sensitivity, would become an excellent predictor of mortality. Although Gemsaa disliked the Jedi Order, the thought of that much death horrified her. Then she thought about Thape's story of the dying planetary ecosystem he had found. Midi-chlorians existed in high levels within the Jedi, that was true, but in fact, all living things possessed the symbionts to some degree. This disease threatened all life.

Gemsaa swallowed her fear and redoubled her efforts to fight the change within her body. There must be a way to stop the disease, she thought. But even though her sickness was in an early stage, she could feel it progressing rapidly. The change in her cells was spreading much faster than it had for Master Thape. With a perverse sense of satisfaction, Gemsaa realized that her own midi-chlorian levels must be much higher than his. Then she remembered that her son's levels were very, very high, although he didn't know it. If Espaa was to come in contact with her, his life would be in grave danger.

Nothing Gemsaa tried had any effect. The altered symbionts were shadowy and slippery to her Force sense, and she could not affect them or rid her body of them. At the same time, her healing powers steadily weakened. The more she struggled, the less she could do. Finally, she simply ran out of strength. 


End file.
